“I’d call it fucked.” He smiled tiredly and then sighed. “Babe …” She had to know, but he hated to tell her. “Yeah?”
“I don’t know if you remember, but the newspaper boys took a bunch of pictures as they led Luke away.” He held his breath and watched the look on her face. He could see that she didn’t remember.
“Those shits, why couldn’t they leave him his last shred of dignity? Miserable, rotten …”
Alejandro shook his head. “Kezia … they took pictures of you.” The words dropped like a bomb.
“Of me?”
He nodded.
“Jesus.”
“They just thought you were his old lady, and I had Luke’s attorney call them and ask them not to run the pictures or your name. But by then, they knew who you were. Somebody spotted the pictures when they were developing them. That’s a lot of bad luck.”
“They ran the pictures?” She sat very still.
“Out here, you’re page one. Page four in New York. Edward called a few times last night.” Kezia threw back her head and started to laugh. It was a nervous, hysterical laugh, and not the reaction he had expected.
“Man, we really bought it this time, didn’t we? Edward must be dying, poor thing.” But she didn’t sound very sympathetic. She sounded distracted.
“That’s putting it mildly.” Alejandro almost felt sorry for the man. He had sounded so stricken. So betrayed.
“Well, you plays, you pays, as they say. How bad are the pictures?”
About as bad as you could get. She had been hysterical when the photographers had spotted them. Alejandro pulled the evening edition of the Examiner from under the bed and held it out to her. On the front page was a photograph of Kezia collapsing in Alejandro’s arms. She cringed as she saw it, and glanced at the text. “Socialite heiress Kezia Saint Martin, secret girlfriend of ex-con Lucas Johns, collapses outside courtroom after …” It was worse than they had feared.
“I think Edward is mainly concerned with what kind of shape you’re in now.”
“My ass, he is. He’s having a heart attack over the story. You don’t know Edward.” She sounded almost like a child afraid of her father. It seemed odd to Alejandro.
“Did he know about Luke?”
“Not like this he didn’t. Actually, he knew I had interviewed him, and he also knew there’s been someone important in my life for the last few months. Well, sooner or later, I guess it had to come out. We were lucky till now. It’s a bitch that it has to be like this though. Have the papers called since?”
“A few times. I told them there was no story, and you were flying back to New York today. I thought that might get them off your back, and they’d keep busy watching the airport.”
“And the lobby.”
He hadn’t thought about that. What an insane way to live.
“We’ll have to call the manager and arrange to get out of here. I want to move to the Ritz. They won’t find us there.”
“No, but you can count on some coverage tomorrow if you want to see Luke at the jail.”
She stood up and faced him, an icy look in her eyes. “Not ‘if,’ Alejandro, ‘when.’ And if they want to be pigs about it, fuck them.”
* * *
The day slipped by in a haze of silence and cigarette smoke. Their move to the Ritz passed uneventfully. A fifty dollar “gift” to the manager encouraged him to show them out through a back door, and keep his mouth shut about it later. Apparently, he had. There were no calls for them at the Ritz.
Kezia sat lost in her own thoughts, rarely speaking. She was thinking of Luke, and how he had looked when they led him away … and before that, how he had looked in the law library. He had been a free man then, for those last precious moments.
She called Edward from the Ritz and struggled through a brief, anguished conversation with him. They both cried. Edward kept repeating, “How could you do this?” He left the words “to me” unspoken, but they were there, nevertheless. He wanted her to fly home or let him fly out. He exploded when she refused.
“Edward, please, for God’s sake, don’t do this to me. Don’t pressure me now!” She shouted through her tears and wondered briefly why they kept throwing guilt at each other. Who cared “who was doing what to whom.” It had been done unto Kezia, and Luke, but not by Edward. And Kezia had done nothing to Edward, not intentionally. They were all caught in the teeth of a maniacal machine, and no one could help it, or stop it.
“You have to come home, Kezia! Think of what they’ll do to you out there.”
“They’ve already done it, and if it’s in the papers in New York it won’t make any difference where I am. I could fly to Tangiers for chrissake, and they’d still want a piece of the action.”
“It’s really unbelievable. I still don’t understand … and Kezia … good God, girl, you must have known this would happen to him. That story you told me about his being sick … this was what you meant, wasn’t it?” She nodded silently at the receiver and his voice came back sharper. “Wasn’t it?”
“Yes.” Her voice sounded so small, so broken and hurt.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“How could I?” There was a long moment of silence when they both knew the truth.
“I still don’t understand how you could involve yourself.
You said in your own article about him that there was a possibility of this. How …”
“Oh shut up, damn you, Edward, I did. That’s all, I did. And stop clucking like a bloody mother hen about it. I did, and I got hurt, we both got hurt, and believe me, he’s hurting one hell of a lot more sitting in jail right now.” There was deadly silence and Edward’s voice came back with a measured venom that was totally foreign to him … except for once before.
“Mr. Johns is used to jail, Kezia.” She wanted to hang up on Edward then, but she didn’t quite dare. Severing the connection would sever something more, something deeper, and she still needed that tie, maybe only a little bit, but she needed it. Edward was all she had in a way, except Luke.
“Do you have anything else to say?” Her voice was almost as vicious as his had been a moment before. She was willing to kick at him, but not dismiss him entirely.
“Yes. Come home. Immediately.”
“I won’t. Anything else?”
“I don’t know what it will take to bring you to your senses, Kezia, but I suggest you make an effort to become rational as quickly as possible. You may regret this for a lifetime.”
“I will, but not for the reasons you think, Edward.”
“You have no idea how something like this can jeopardize …” His voice trailed off unhappily. For a moment he hadn’t been speaking to Kezia, but to the ghost of her mother, and they both knew it. Now Kezia was certain. Now she knew why he had told her about her mother and the tutor. Now she knew it all.
“Jeopardize what? My ‘position’? My ‘consequence,’ as Aunt Hil would say? Jeopardize my chances of finding a husband? You think I give a damn about all that now? I care about Luke, Edward. I care about Lucas Johns. I love him!” She was shouting again.
Three thousand miles away, silent tears were sliding down Edward’s face. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.”
It was the voice of her attorney, her trustee, her guardian. Not her friend. Something had finally snapped. The gap between them was broadening to a frightening degree, for both of them.
“I will.” They exchanged no goodbye and Edward severed the connection. Kezia sat for a long moment holding the dead phone in her hands, while Alejandro watched her.
Tears of farewell slid down her cheeks. That had been two in two days. In one way or another, she had lost the only two men she had ever loved, since her father. Three lost men in a lifetime. She knew that somehow she had just lost Edward. She had betrayed him. What he had sought most to prevent had finally come.
Edward, sitting in his office, knew it too. He walked solemnly to the door, locked it carefully, walked back to his
desk, and flicked the switch on his intercom, informing his secretary in the driest of tones that he did not want to be disturbed until further notice. Then, having carefully put aside the mail on his desk, he lay his head down on his arms and broke into heart-rending sobs. He had lost her … lost them both … and to such unworthy men. As he lay there he wondered why the only two women he had ever loved had such a brutal flaw in their characters … the tutor … and now this … this … jailbird … this nobody! He found himself shouting the word, and then, surprised at himself, he stopped crying, lifted his head, sat back in his chair, and stared at his view. There were times when he simply did not understand. No one played by the rules anymore. Not even Kezia, and he had taught her himself. He shook his head slowly, blew his nose twice, and went back to his desk to look over the mail.
Jack Simpson was sympathetic when he called her. But Kezia’s agent didn’t help matters by feeling guilty for introducing her to Luke. She assured him that he’d given her the best gift of her life, but the tears in her voice didn’t console either of them.
Alejandro tried to coax her into a walk, but she wouldn’t move, and sat in the hotel room with the shades drawn, smoking, drinking tea, coffee, water, scotch, scarcely eating, just thinking, her eyes filling with tears, her hands shaking and frail. She was afraid to go out now, afraid of the press and afraid of missing a phone call from Luke.
“Maybe he’ll call.”
“Kezia, he can’t call from county jail. They won’t let him.”
“Maybe they will.”
It was pointless to argue with her; it was almost as though she didn’t hear. And whatever she heard, she didn’t listen to. The only sounds that penetrated were her own inner voices, and the echoes of Luke.
It was midnight before Alejandro finally got her to bed.
“What are you doing?” She could see his outline in the chair in the corner. Her voice sounded strangely old.
“I thought I’d just sit here for a while. Will it keep you from sleeping?” She wanted to reach out in the darkness and touch his hand. She couldn’t find the words again, all she could do was shake her head and cry. It had been an unbearable day, not as tense as the previous day, but more wearing. The endless pressure of pain.
He heard the muffled sobs in the pillow and came closer to sit on the edge of the bed. “Kezia, don’t.” He stroked her hair, her arm, her hand, as her body shook with sobs. She was keening for Luke. “Oh baby … little girl, why did this happen to you?” She was so unprepared, so unused to anything she could not control, and she had seen nothing like this. There were tears in his own eyes again, but she couldn’t see them.
“It didn’t happen to me, Alejandro. It happened to him.” The voice was bitter and tired through her tears.
He stroked her hair for what seemed like hours, and at last she fell asleep. He smoothed the covers around her, and touched her cheek ever so gently. She looked young again as she slept; the anger had left her thin face. The bitterness of what can happen to a life out in the big, bad, ugly world had come as a shock to her. She was learning the hard way, with her heart, and her guts.
He heard her knock gently on his door, and raised his head from the pillow. Sleep had taken a long time to come to him the night before, and now it was only five after six.
“Who is it?”
“Me. Kezia.”
“Is anything wrong?”
“I just thought maybe we should get up.” Today was the day she was going to see Lucas. Alejandro smiled tiredly as he got up to open the door, pulling on his pants as he went.
“Kezia, you’re crazy. Why don’t you go back to sleep for a while?” She was standing there in a blue flannel nightgown and her white satin robe, her feet bare, her hair loose and long and dark. Her eyes looked alive again in the much too pale face.
“I can’t sleep and I’m hungry. Did I wake you?”
“No, no, of course not. I always get up at six. In fact, I’ve been up since four.” He looked at her chidingly and she laughed.
“Okay, okay. I get the message. Is it too early to get you some coffee, and me some tea?”
“Sweetheart, this ain’t the Fairmont. Do you really want to get moving that bad?”
She nodded. “How soon can I see him?”
“I don’t think they let you visit till eleven or twelve.” Christ, they could have had another four hours of sleep. Alejandro silently mourned the lost hours. He was half dead.
“Well, we’re up now. We might as well stay up.”
“Wonderful. That’s just what I wanted to hear. Kezia, if I didn’t love you so much, and if your old man weren’t such a fucking giant, I think right about now I’d kick your ass.”
She smiled delightedly at him. “I love you too.”
He grinned at her, sat down, and lit a cigarette. She already had one in her hand, and he saw that the hand was still shaking, but aside from that and the pale, pointed look of her face, she looked better. Some sparkle had come back to her eyes, a hint of life and the old Kezia. The girl was a fighter for sure.
He vanished into the bathroom and came out with combed hair, brushed teeth, and a clean shirt.
“My, don’t you look pretty.” She was wide awake and full of teasing this morning. It was a far cry from the condition she’d been in the morning before. At least that was a relief.
“You’re just looking for trouble this morning, aren’t you? Hasn’t anyone ever told you not to bug a man before his first cup of coffee?”
“Pobrecito!”
He flipped her the finger and she laughed at him.
“And now that you’ve dragged me out of my warm bed, I suppose you’re going to take two hours to dress.” He waved at the nightgown and robe.
“Make that five minutes.”
She was as good as her word. She was moving very quickly this morning, like a kid waiting for her first trip to the circus, up at dawn, nervous, jumpy, and already tired by breakfast. And they still had five hours to kill before they could see Luke.
Alejandro’s thoughts drifted constantly to Luke now. How was he taking it? Was he all right? What was he thinking? Was he already back to the jailhouse jiving, the cold indifference of lost hopes, or was he still Luke? And if he had already reverted to what he’d once been, how big a shock would it be for Kezia? And how would she adjust to the visit? Alejandro knew it only too well, but he knew that she didn’t. Visiting through a thick glass window, speaking on a static-ridden phone, with Luke wearing a filthy rumpled orange overall that would barely reach to his elbows and knees. He would be living in a cell with half a dozen other men, eating beans and stale bread and an imitation of meat, drinking coffee grinds and shitting with no toilet paper. It was one hell of a place to take Kezia, visiting with pimps and hookers and thieves and distraught mothers and hippie girls who would bring ragged children in their arms or on their backs. There would be noise and stench and agony. How much could she take? How far into this world would Luke lead her? And now it was on his back. It was Alejandro’s baby. Taking care of Kezia.
There was a knock on his door that broke into his thoughts. Kezia again. Dressed and ready to go.
“Boy, you sure look gloomy as hell.”
His thoughts must have showed. “Morning is not my best hour. I can’t say the same for you, though. You look pretty sharp for tea at a truck stop.” She was, as usual, expensively dressed. And there was a brittle cheeriness about her which was beginning to make him nervous. What if she cracked?
“Shouldn’t we call a cab?” They had dispensed with the limousine when they checked into the Ritz, again with an oversized tip to buy the chauffeur’s silence.
“We can walk. I know a place a few blocks away.”
They headed south in the damp air, and crept down the steep hills hand in hand.
“It’s really such a beautiful city, isn’t it, Al? Maybe we can go for a walk later today.”
He hoped not. He hoped Luke would tell her to get her ass on a plane to New York.
By the end of the week, Luke would be back in Quentin, and there was no point in her staying for that. She couldn’t visit him until she got clearance anyway, and that could take weeks. And sooner or later, she’d have to go home. Better sooner than later.
The truck stop was full but not crowded, the room was warm, and the jukebox was already alive. The aroma of coffee mingled with the odor of tired men, cigarette smoke and cigars. She was the only woman in the place, but invited only a few uninterested glances.
Alejandro made her order breakfast, and she made a face. He was unyielding. Two fried eggs, bacon, hash browns, and toast.
“For chrissake, Alejandro. I don’t eat that much for dinner.”
“And you look it. Skinny upper-class broad.”
“Now don’t be a snob.” She ate one piece of bacon, and played with the toast. The untouched eggs stared up at her like two jaundiced eyes.
“You’re not eating.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“And you’re smoking too much.”
“Yes, Daddy. Anything else?”
“Up yours, lady. Listen, you’d better take care of yourself, or I’ll squeal to the boss.”
“You’d tell Lucas?”
“If I have to.” A flicker of worry flashed through her eyes.
“Listen, Alejandro, seriously….”
“Yes?” He laughed at the way she was beginning to squirm.
“I’m serious. Don’t upset Luke about anything. If he saw it, that hideous picture in the paper will be bad enough.”
Alejandro nodded, sobered, no longer teasing. They had both seen the small item on page three of the Chronicle that morning: Miss Saint Martin had not yet returned to New York; it was assumed that she was “hiding” somewhere in the city. There was even some speculation about whether she had been hospitalized for nervous collapse. She had certainly looked well on her way to it in the pictures. But they also suggested that if she were in town, she’d probably show up on a visiting day to see Luke, “unless Miss Kezia Saint Martin has pulled strings for private visiting privileges with Mr. Johns.”
“Gee, I never thought of that.”
“Want to give it a try? It may spare you some hassles with the press. It seems pretty clear they’ll be watching for you on visiting days.”
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